"My amendment to the Farm Bill will change federal policy to allow U.S. farmers
to produce hemp for these safe and legitimate products right here, helping both
producers and suppliers to grow and improve Oregon's economy in the
process," Wyden said in a news release.

The 2009 Oregon Legislature made it legal to grow and possess industrial hemp and to buy and sell hemp commodities and products, but federal policy blocked its implementation. The feds do not distinguish oilseed and fiber varieties of hemp from psychoactive pot, and no one can grow it until they say so.

American manufacturers must import hemp, including a Portland company, Living Harvest Foods Inc., that makes protein powder, ice cream and milk from oil-rich hemp seeds.

A 1998 Oregon State University study concluded that industrial hemp would grow well in the Columbia and Snake River basins and in the lowland areas between the Coast Range and the Cascades from the Rogue Valley in the south to Puget Sound in the north. It would require irrigation, adding to the cost of production, but anywhere sweet corn grows well, hemp would do the same, OSU concluded.